


Growing Old & Staying Young

by charleybradburies



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Backstory, Canon Het Relationship, Children, Community: 1_million_words, Community: ncis_drabble, Could Be Canon, F/M, Female Jewish Character, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hope vs. Despair, Implied Relationships, Jewish Character, POV Male Character, Past Tense, Realization, References to Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When did you know?"</p><p>ncis_drabble challenge #452: lightbulb moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Old & Staying Young

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [No Rain Date](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4379534) by [ami_ven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven). 



“When did you know?”

It was a question that had haunted him before, and one that would continue to do so.

The part that haunted Tony was that he never really seemed to have an answer. Not like Gibbs, with his impeccable (however carefully curated) memory, or Ducky, with his encyclopaedic history of his own life ready at hand.

“When did you know?” this particular kid, Ada, had asked him that particular Sunday, while trying to shove his cover onto her head for the hundredth time. The ballcap had fallen off the first time so she’d set it crooked in an odd direction, but Abby had told her she looked the part of an investigator anyway - fashion only mattered if it mattered to you, after all, to hell with the rest if it didn’t (okay, so Tony had thought that last part himself) - and she hadn’t bothered to fix it. Her long, dark hair kept escaping in tufts, and every time she ran, leading her - Tony’s, that is - scavenger hunt team to the next clue, it would fall off, consigning Tony to bringing it back to his temporary star probie. 

He was lucky she was taking on the role herself, since Abby’s reminder that children of all faiths were welcome with Abby’s church hadn’t included prior notice of the curly-haired sass monster with the star of David on her neck - the very picture of someone even Bishop could see in her.

Years later, he’d tell her that her question was the moment that he’d realized that the brunch date he was missing for Abby’s not-actually-an-emergency-911 request was just another attempt at filling a void that he had no chance of filling, but of course he’d only just met little Ada then, and she was asking about something completely different. (When he’d known he hadn’t hated kids was a whole other story, too.)

“When did I know what?”

“That you were gonna be an agent, duh.”

He’d laughed at that, and she hadn’t understood. 

“Not until my boss told me he was taking me, pretty much. But I was a cop long before that.”

“Like a month long or like, a week long?”

“You have a very odd concept of time, Ada, you know that?”

“Maybe _you’re_ the one with the odd concept of time, Agent DiNozzo.”

He'd walked straight into that one - he’d freely admitted it, even then. 

“I’d been a cop for a number of years before I met Gibbs. _That_ was probably...three times your lifetime or longer ago.”

“That _is_ a long time.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re _old,_ then.”

“Yeah...and you’re much less nice than Sister Eleanor had led me to think you were.” 

He was still proud of how hard she’d laughed at that.

Still glad he'd called Ziva when he got home that afternoon.

But if he'd known the magic words to get her home had been _those_ magic words, he might have said them sooner.


End file.
